Are We Kidding Ourselves – Pt. 4

The world is considerably less stable than we generally wish it to be. Yet, it usually offers us a definition we grasp. In it we find a place of safety. I’ll call that place the arena of truth. What an odd thing to call it. The word arena brings up an image of conflict. Well, the fact is that we live in conflict. Its just that we often know how to dismiss it and confine it. And when we define truth we feel we have found safety.

Conventional Reality

Another term for this place is conventional reality. Others help reinforce its guidelines and we come to believe in its truth. If we are fortunate we find peace and tranquility although our inner self (with its own definition) may remain insistent. That is where we live if our society is stable.

The tranquil place helps us to manage problems and support tranquility. If we are truly fortunate there is equality among us. At the edges conflict always seems to be searching for an opening. From time to time there is instability but if the foundations are sound, it is brought under control.

Deluding Ourselves with the Help of Others

Around us are a system of beliefs and others beckon us to join them in a common celebration of them. The alternatives are not pretty. To be utterly alone is not what we seek. We generally seek and find comfort. But what we see over and over is how tenuous our circumstances may be. There are times when we see the process broken as when war comes to rage.

The Call to Change

Always in us there are two voices. One voice calls on us to maintain calm and stability while the other calls to seek change. The latter voice is more common in the young and fades with the decades unless there is something that remains unresolved. We all see people in later years who break free from how their life has been. Often the consequences are dire.

But, if we can manage it, the other call is one beckoning with a new dawn. Some people are able to master this call leading to a fruitful life in which peril is contained. What we do not wish to seek is to find a place of darkness over and over.

The Call to Writing Fiction and Reading Literature

Writing offers many of us a safe opportunity. A story and characters are created. Because of the devotion to the activity the author can enjoy life with the characters and if they prove troublesome dismiss them with the “stroke of a pen”. The same goes for the path of the story.

We can create a world which is safe as our characters frolic or solve their challenge with us safely along for the ride. Naturally the same thing goes for the reader of fiction. They can seize a story or end it with a hand movement. How glorious to have these opportunities.

The wonderful thing is that with proper management we often can construct a pleasing world and that form of kidding ourselves is productive and fulfilling.